The day of my first attack was during the latter days of summer in 1957. I was in my first year working for the old London Trustee Savings Bank, which was situated in Poultry in the City of London. My position as accounts clerk meant I was placed next to the vault below ground and directly under the main bank floor. I shared this space with a senior accounts clerk, who was nearing retirement. We were both working merrily away writing up the old type account cards and ledgers (long before computers came in) from all the deposit and withdrawal slips sent down to us from the Cashiers. This was a regular daily occurrence.
On the particular day in question, we were well up with our entering and it was getting near to closing of the Bank. Then suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, my head felt like it was exploding and my eyes lost their vision. Then the feeling to my left arm disappeared and I had this great feeling to be sick, although I wasn’t. I had no alternative but to place my head on the massive ledger and shout for help. My senior accounts clerk called up to those in the main bank building and the Manager came down and started to ask me questions about what was happening to me.
IT WAS AT THIS TIME I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE!!
Fortunately, as the minutes progressed the vision in my eyes started to return, but as it did there were great flashes down the outside of each eye, which resembled zigzag lightning. This stayed with me for the whole time the vision was getting back to normal, about half an hour. By this time the Bank was closed and I was now almost able to move from my seat with my arm ceasing to be partially paralysed. I was now sufficiently mobile to be able to catch the underground train from The Bank back to The Oval (Kennington) where I proceeded to walk to my doctor’s surgery.
Upon gaining entry to the doctor’s surgery and relating my recent experiences to him, especially about the bit where I said I thought I was going to die, he had the audacity to start laughing aloud relating the reasons for why I had had all these symptoms and felt as shocking bad as I did. Not what I was expecting to receive from what I would think to be a professional man.
Although when I analysed what he had said, it did not bear any resemblance to a diagnosis, as to what I had suffered almost alone and at the tender age of 16. He tried to put the blame on the cheese sandwiches I had had for lunch, followed by the four fingers of kit-kat chocolate. OK, at the time it might have sounded plausible, as others did say similar to me over the following attacks. But during my 50 plus years of suffering migraines, these two components (cheese & chocolate) would not be my reasons for the migraines interrupting my life at regular intervals.
IN FACT, I AM HAVING A MIGRAINE AS I AM WRITING THIS NOW!! So what is the reason for this? As yet nobody will be able to tell me. No cheese or chocolate has passed my lips, the whole day.
As I mentioned above, I have been getting migraine attacks for almost 52 years and during that time they have taken their similar course, but not always exactly. There have been times when I do not get pins & needles throughout one arm or the other, there are other times when I do not feel sick, not even slightly.
But the THREE main protagonists are always there, firstly the vision in my eyes goes, then the exaggerated flashing zigzags (although sometimes it is to the outside of one of the eyes only) and then the violent headache, this comes as regular as one day following another. The recovery time is always different, with sometimes a more rapid return to normality than some others. The worst being those long hours in a darkened room, under the duvet with the pillow also over your head. Not knowing when you will become NORMAL again, like other non sufferers.
Another cause of my migraines is the sudden flash of the sun off a car or lorry windscreen, this happens when you least expect it or you are not wearing sunglasses. It can also cause the most concerns, as because it affects my vision, so it will affect my view when driving. Fortunately for me, the vision it impairs is my short range vision, so I am still able to drive the car to a safe place to park and then rest up while my vision returns and I can continue my journey, having taken my tablet to relieve the headache bit.
There have been many times when I have suffered multiple attacks in the same day, the most being four. Only the other day I experienced three following very quickly after each other during one morning and this was after having an attack the previous day. In my present position with medication I would not have been too concerned because I have at last found a tablet which nullifies my headache completely and after all these years I can put up with the vision loss etc but I was down to only three tablets and was not able to get my repeat prescription because the manufacturers were not supplying them again until December -PANIC. So my doctor prescribed me some alternatives, of course no where near as good and after taking them for one day, they drove my bowels crazy with four visits to the toilet in that day. Needless to say I spent most of the day and the following night in bed (apart from the visits to the WC).
As we all are aware, we are always at the mercy of the dreaded migraine attack, not really knowing when it will happen and how bad they will be. We are also no given much encouragement from the powers that be, in that they will never know the reasons why we have to suffer. I suppose we are in a similar category to those who suffer badly with the common cold – No Remedy. Although that is no consolation, we must always take the positive view that our migraines are not usually life threatening.
So as we sufferers always do, we survive the current attack and wait for the next one to happen, because as we are certain, the next one will arrive but unlike buses, there is no timetable.
This last round of attacks was the reason I sat down and wrote this article, because although I had been suffering, I was sure there were many thousands of others suffering in a similar way.
Therefore, in closing, I will stress (there’s another good reason for an attack) that the article in this article has been written on only some of my own personal experiences (to put all of them would be boring and drive you all to a migraine). Many of you who read this may have similar experiences to me, but whatever your symptoms perhaps you would all put pen to paper and write your experiences down and then send them to me by email at the address shown below.
In this publication I have put the bad sides of what has happened throughout my 52 year migraine life, but I have also tried to implanted a little humour throughout, as we must not get ourselves into such a tunnelled existence, as migraines can send you, if you let them.